


Towards Unknown Seas

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Het, Romance, mention of PTSD, mention of past violence and torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Afghanistan, Kensi has a decision to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towards Unknown Seas

**Author's Note:**

> For the one million words weekend challenge   
> Theme: Marie from Roxette/Roxette songs  
> Prompt : towards Unknown seas

"You know you don't have to make this decision now."

Nate's voice was the same one he'd had for this entire conversation, no matter how many times she'd gone round and round in circles, second and third guessing the decision she'd already made. It was his most reasonable, most sincere, most calming voice and somehow Kensi felt like it was having the exact opposite effect on her. 

"I know that," she told him and she managed to keep her voice level. Maybe he heard the frustration underneath because he reached out, closed one hand over hers. The touch did what his voice couldn't and she felt the tension begin to seep out of her. 

"I just don't want you to make a decision now that you're going to regret." His eyes fell on the papers on her coffee table, the ones she'd been contemplating signing for the last two hours, if not the last three months. 

"Which is why it's a transfer request, not a letter of resignation." Which she'd also debated, going as far as typing one out but falling just short of pressing print. "I don't want to leave NCIS... but Nate..." She pictured the mission, her desk, Hetty, and her stomach turned over unpleasantly. The air in the room seemed to grow thicker around her, making it harder to breathe suddenly, and her clothes - no, scratch that, her skin - suddenly felt three sizes too small. "I don't think I can go back there." 

Nate's hand tightened on hers, his dark eyes worried. "You've been through an ordeal," he reminded her. "It's natural..."

"It's been three months," she reminded him.

"Three months is nothing for a trauma like that and you know it." He tossed the time period right back at her without blinking and she knew that he was right. What she'd been through in Afghanistan couldn't be cured in a matter of weeks; she had plenty more nightmares ans therapy sessions ahead of her and she knew that. 

The funny thing was, she was all right with that. 

It was the rest of it that nauseated her. 

"I do," she whispered. "And if it had been an ordinary case, I think I'd be fine with staying on." She swallowed hard. "But Hetty sent me there on purpose... Because of Jack. Because of my relationship with him. She knew I would never pull the trigger on him, no matter what Granger or anyone else told me." Her apartment swam around her and for just a moment she was back there in the heat of Afghanistan, staring down a rifle scope into the face of the man who had broken her heart. 

She could almost feel the sand in her eyes and Nate's touch to her cheek, wiping away the tear she didn't even realise had fallen, brought her back to reality. "She should have told me," she heard her voice whisper. "She should have warned me." 

"Yeah." Nate's whisper was heavy and her head snapped around to look at him. In three months, he'd never said anything like that to her. "She should have."

A lump rose in Kensi's throat as she looked at him. "I don't know if I can trust her any more," she admitted, the first time she'd ever vocalised such thoughts and the way his thumb moved up and down her cheek, the way his sigh moved the strands of her hair, told her that he agreed with her. 

"I'm signing the papers," she told him and he nodded, standing and going to his briefcase, the only place in the apartment where a pen was guaranteed to be found. 

Much to her surprise, when he returned, it was not only with a pen but with an identical set of papers. "What-" she began, but when the penny dropped, she shook her head. "Nate, no... you don't have to..."

"I'm not doing this for you." His voice was firm but gentle, at complete odds with the pain she saw on his face. "I was there, Kensi... with Sam and Callen and Deeks... Half a world away from home, not knowing if I'd ever see you again... seeing those pictures..." He shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut like he was seeing them all over again. "I thought I'd lost you," he told her, tears in his voice, in his eyes when he opened them. It was Kensi's turn to reach for his hand then because this was something else he'd never admitted to her. For the last three months, he'd been her rock, the one who'd been with her through every nightmare, every panic attack, who'd waited outside every therapy session, been there for whatever she needed. Never once had he mentioned his own feelings, not until tonight. "And I know," he continued, "that Hetty had her reasons. Hetty always has her reasons. But after this... I don't know if I can trust in her any more either."

"Are you sure?" He'd asked her that same question more than once and just like she had, he nodded. 

"I don't know what happens next," he told her. "I don't have all the answers. But whatever we do..." He raised their joined hands to his lips. "We're together. Deal?"

A sob escaped her lips and she threw herself into his arms. "Deal." 


End file.
